Dying corals - remove or try to recover?

[wsoldier]

I haven't been able to get my nutrients under control after a big spike 2 months ago (switched to frozen foods to appease Copperband butterfly), and I've lost a number of corals... Question is, what's the threshold for removing corals that have bleached or in the case of euphyllia, lost all the soft tissue? Is it worth keeping in hopes that they recover, or better to remove any possibly decaying corals?

My nutrient export (chaeto) has been slow to grow and the green hair algae has been building up in the display. Prior to the spike, my chaeto was stripping out too much when it was much larger. My thinking being that the GHA is outcompeting the chaeto, but I'm wondering if the corals that have browned/bleached are keeping my nutrient levels elevated.

Thanks.

PO4: .13
NO3: ~10

 

[SmallLebowski]

I don’t believe that leaving coral skeletons in the tank would adversely affect water quality. Curious to see what others have to say.

As for nutrients, have you considered carbon dosing (eg NoPox?). If you do, take it slow. Crashing nutrients suddenly can also adversely affect coral.

 

[Mikedawg]

Unless it is tissue necrosis I usually give mine time after making sure they have appropriate placement, flow, etc.

 

[NS Mike D]

Once the GHA moves in and covers the skeleton is when I pull them. Meanwhile, I hope for a recovery. Sometimes that happens.

Good luck with your nutrient spike. Check out @brandon429 threads on getting all the detritus out of the tank (including the sand bed) and scrubbing the rocks clear of algae with H202.

It may be radical, but he has high success rates.

 

[brandon429]

Agreed


the idea sounds so horrible we only get the nothing left to lose don’t care portion of participants. But secretly, a massive amount of people are rip cleaning systems ahead of time, before mass onset and we are trading awesome before and after pics in pmessages yep


how many gallons total is the tank here

 

[wsoldier]

75 gallons

 

[NS Mike D]

I am in the middle of a total redo - my corals (what was left of them) are history and my rocks are in an a H202 bucket waiting to get scrubbed and re-cured. My sand bed is 90% gone (just enough to keep the remaining snails happy) and that and my water will get removed and replaced.

I regret not doing a rip clean earlier, before the dinos got to the point where they smothered and killed off the sps and lps corals and my hermits. I am certain if I took the time and did a rip clean a year ago, my tank would be back to its glory days. I did half measures that only served to repopulate the GHA and eventually set the table for a massive dino outbreak. Not rip cleaning when the dinos got going was a recipe for failure.

FWIW, the tank devoid of DT rock (I have rubble rock and macro algae in two sumps) with the same water and the same remaining sand showing no signs of dinos nor gha). While I assume they very well may remain it the water column, the stuff that was attaching to the hardware in the tank were easily brushed off and never reattached (after a week of daily brushing). I still have the same fish and haven't changed the feeding schedule. But the removal the infestations on the rock must have brought the critical mass of nuisance stuff and locations to take hold below a level it could remain visible.

@brandon429 logic is pretty sound. The detritus builds up in the sand bed and rock work and serves to feed the algae. If you don't remove the detritus and algae from the tank, it will keep growing back.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Try to recover

 

[NanoDJS]

+1 Vetteguy , dont ever throw out coral like that except totally gone sps . You will most likely have new babies on that euphilya skelly in a few weeks

 

[jeffchapok]

I had a stylophora that was completely white and overgrown with GHA. I threw it into my QT and a snail eventually cleared away all the algae. About a week ago I noticed it was coloring back up again with some polyp extension, so I've moved it back into my DT (better lighting and flow).

I've kept all my euphyllia skeletons as well, but have yet to have one come back. Fingers still crossed...

 

[brandon429]

75 gallons is doable here’s a 120 preventative run

during his takedown portion that’s where you’d knife tip rasp your algae off rock directly outside the tank, like a dentist details a bad tooth while avoiding gums and non target zones
put peroxide directly on the cleaned rinsed rasped areas, where algae used to be, this kills growback cells

reassemble a cloud free his corals are fine, he has now rip cleaned twice just to test its effects.

120 gallon rip clean

I’ve decided to perform a rip clean on my 120 with 100% new water. The tank has been running for 5 years and was battling Dino for several months. I used the bacteria method from elegant corals and worked great I haven’t seen Dino in months now. But I tried several other methods including...

www.reef2reef.com

you can draw off your current water and hold in brutes for re use, just clean and de cloud then put it back. Use as much new water as you can stand to make, its less target cells in suspension